Challenging the World
by fowl68
Summary: The boy was an Auditore. He wouldn't be contained in a cage. Even if that cage was his own home.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything.

**Author's Note:** Just finished playing Assassin's Creed 2. I gotta admit that I fell in love with it. The fact that it took place in Renaissance Italy certainly helped. Anyway, this popped into my head piece by piece as I kept playing, so I figured I'd give this fandom a shot.

-/-/-/-

_Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future. ~Gail Lumet Buckley  
_

-/-/-/

There is no doubting that Federico and Ezio are brothers. Even if one was blind, unable to see the physical similarities, they could not be anything else. They teased and challenged and argued with each other, true, but that was healthy for growing boys.

Where Federico went, Ezio was sure to follow. When Federico was crawling and Ezio confined to his crib, Federico would slip his fingers through the bars. When Federico was walking and it was Ezio's turn to crawl, Federico was never far from his brother, though that didn't mean much as they both had the very same adventurous spirit and their hands, knees and feet quickly became calloused from playing in the courtyard and climbing atop boxes.

Maria frowned when she found them in the kitchen one afternoon, each munching on an almond cake and leaning against the counter, laughing. Her boys were half-grown now, she thought sadly, and Federico was already taller than her.

"Have you suddenly become allergic to tables and chairs, my sons?" She asks.

"It is more comfortable to eat standing." Federico said with a shrug. Ezio nodded, mouth too full of cake to reply.

"Like your father, the both of you."

"You say that like it's a bad thing_, bella_." Familiar arms snaked around Maria's waist. Giovanni kissed her cheek.

Maria eyed him. "It must be a male thing."

Her men gave her an identical, charming smirk.

-/-/-/-

When Lorenzo first meets Claudia, she is four years old and she doesn't hide behind her mother's skirts like so many children do at that age. He crouches to see her. Giovanni had told him of his daughter in some of his letters, though this is his first time ever seeing the girl. "And who is this?"

"Claudia Auditore." The girl replies with all the pride of a four-year old.

"Yes, I can see that." Lorenzo murmured. She had the tan skin, the dark curls that framed her face. She had her mother's cheekbones and nose, but her eyes were her father's hazel.

There's a pounding of feet and Lorenzo isn't surprised to see Federico and Ezio dashing into the room and skidding to a stop once they see him, Ezio having to brace himself on his brother's shoulders so as not to run into him. "_Salute_, Lorenzo." They say at the same time.

"_Salute, bambini_."

"Why were you running, boys?" Maria asks.

"We wanted to know if Claudia could play." Maria wasn't as strict as most mothers with her daughter. She did not enforce that Claudia should act like a lady. She had spoken of it with_ Nonna_ Auditore, who had only laughed. _("Claudia? A lady? She has too much Auditore in her for that.")_ But the boys knew that sometimes, Claudia wasn't allowed to play with them and they didn't understand why. _("You play too rough sometimes." Maria would tell them and they would look at each other confused before shrugging.)_

"Go ahead, Claudia."

Claudia doesn't think twice, lifting her skirts to chase after her brothers.

-/-/-/-

Petruccio is much more like his mother. Studious, clever and quiet. But there is a mischief in him that is all Giovanni. All Auditore.

Petruccio flinches when he hears his mother coming down the stairs. She wouldn't like that he'd been out again. He was fragile, she said. Ill. But why did his being ill mean he couldn't enjoy the sun warming the rooftops like Ezio and Federico? Why couldn't he walk through Firenze's winding streets like Claudia?

He sees Ezio coming out of his bedroom door upstairs. Ezio glances down at his brother before calling out to their mother. "Mama, can I talk to you?"

Maria turns to her middle son. "What about?"

"It's about…er…a girl."

Petruccio smothered a laugh. He knew how much Ezio hated to talk to Mama about women. He'd have to thank Ezio later.

He waits until Maria is in Ezio's room before running up the stairs towards his room only to nearly run into his father. Petruccio tries for a smile. "You are home early, Papa."

Giovanni lifts an eyebrow. "No earlier than usual. And what are you up to?"

"_Niente especial._" Petruccio lied. He wanted to tell someone about climbing up to the roof—much as it exhausted him—about how beautiful Firenze looked from up there. He wanted to talk about how he would peer over the edge onto the street and thought 'I could jump.' But he doesn't_ really_ jump because this is far too high and he's not willing to try to land in that haystack. He wanted to tell about how, when he sat up there simply watching—and how different watching was when you could see everything!—and he would sit so still for so long that the pigeons would sit on his shoulders and coo. Sometimes, he wished that they could take him and fly away.

"Then why are your breeches so dirty?" Giovanni asks knowingly.

"I-I was…"

Giovanni raises a hand and his son falls silent. He doesn't like that Petruccio sneaks out like that—the boy is ill and shouldn't be out there—but he knows better than to scold him every time. The boy was an Auditore. He wouldn't be contained in a cage. Even if that cage was his own home. "Just don't tell your mother."

Petuccio grins and it lights up the world. "_Si,_ Papa!"

-/-/-/-

When Mario sees his nephew, his heart nearly stops for a moment because he looked so very much like _Giovanni_. He always had as a child, but now that he's almost a man—no, Mario corrects himself. After all that had happened, he most certainly was a man—the resemblance is all the more striking.

He hardly recognizes Claudia. Such a lovely young woman she had become. She was very much her mother, all soft lines with steel in her backbone. When he tells her that if she's going to live here, that she should look after the books, her temper flares.

"You expect me to sit here while Ezio is out there?" Claudia demands, her hands on her hips. "That's ridiculous!"

"Ezio doesn't think so. And neither do I. It is safer for you here."

Her eyes hardened. "Is it because I'm a woman?" She asked and her voice is dangerously soft.

"Is what because you're a woman?"

"Keeping me here? Because I can learn to fight just as well as Ezio and you can. I can climb rooftops and kill just as easily as he can."

Mario doesn't recall ever telling her about what, exactly, Ezio had been and was going to do, but he should have known that Claudia would figure it out. She was a highly intelligent woman. "Can you?"

"_Si_, I can. Of course I can."

Mario folds his fingers in a steeple and leans back in his chair. "Can you really kill someone? Someone who has a family, perhaps kids or a wife waiting for them back home? People who will miss them when they are gone?"

"I told you I can."  
"Why?"

The question throws her. "What?"

"Why would you be able to kill someone so easily?"

Her eyes darken and her fists clench. "They killed my father and brothers. Why wouldn't I be able to?"

She is very like Ezio in that moment, all dark anger and vengeance. Mario wants it to pass, wants to see her smile again. "My answer has not changed, Claudia. You can stay here and tend to the books."

Her lips thin into a line before she turns on her heel and leaves the room. Mario wants to know how Giovanni did it, raising four spirited children. Then again, he muses, his mother must not have had a much easier time with him and Giovanni and their cousins.

He goes to Maria, who is still at prayer. She has hardly moved from that spot and she refuses all offers of food. "Your daughter is very like you." He tells her as he kneels by her side. "She is full of fire."

Ezio knocks on the doorframe before entering. "I came to drop these off."

There are feathers in his hand. Large ones, small ones, pale ones and speckled ones. "What are those for?" Mario asks.

Ezio glances at his mother before replying. "Petruccio was collecting them. He-He never told me what for. Said it was _un_ _segreto."_ When Maria doesn't say anything, he goes to the dresser and opens an old jewelry box. "I'll put them in here for you, Mama."

They are spirited children, Mario thinks, but good ones.

-/-/-/-

Leonardo has painted all of the Auditore family at one point or another. He did a portrait of Giovanni and Maria for their anniversary, one of Federico when he joined the bank, one of Claudia when she first attended Carnevale by herself for the first time. There had been a portrait of the three brothers one year.

But this Ezio is a very different person from the one he used to know even two years ago. He is darker and does not move the same. He was always graceful, true. But it was a noble's grace, his mother's natural grace. Now, he moves like the subtle predator that he is.

Not that he isn't still pleasant company. He still laughs, still jokes and grins. He still has his charm and his wit. He's just…different. Altered. As though someone had made Ezio of clay and had somehow shifted the clay in such a way that you knew something was different, but it was difficult to pinpoint just what that was.

Leonardo sketches Ezio sometimes. Usually when Ezio had no missions and felt like staying in his workshop. Not that Leonardo minded.

Once, Leonardo asked him to pose nude. It wasn't a strange request of an artist, but Ezio looked at him a little puzzled even though he obliged. Ezio is all clean lines and subtle angles. Scars litter his body, something to be expected in his line of work. None are terribly prominent, but they add…something. The bone structure of his face is like his father's, strong and sharp, though there is a softness that was very like Maria.

When he's done, Ezio tugs on his breeches and crosses over to where Leonardo had been working. Ezio tilts his head thoughtfully. "That's me?"

Leonardo glances at him. "No. I asked you to pose because I was going to draw someone else." He says tartly.

Ezio laughs. "It doesn't look like me."

"Of course it does." Leonardo said, a little insulted.

"I think we need an outsider's opinion. Rosa, what do you think?"

Leonardo turned and indeed, Rosa was just opening the door. Ezio must have heard her outside, though how he had, Leonardo had no idea. The woman was as silent as a cat.

Rosa studied the sketch. "You could be looking in a mirror, Ezio."

"I don't understand it."

Perhaps, Leonardo thought, he hadn't looked in a mirror since the deaths of his father and brothers. Really _looked_, because the person in the sketch was a languid predator where the boy in the portraits from so long ago was just that. A boy. One who loved life and his family, who looked up to his elder brother, watched out for the younger one and teased his sister mercilessly.

Ezio cannot be that boy again. What changes had been wrought in him were permanent. A wolf could become a wolfhound, but never a lapdog.

-/-/-/-

He has his rages. Of course he would. The man had just lost his father and brothers, a whole life and the more he searches for answers, the more elusive those answers prove to be.

So when he paces back and forth like a caged animal or destroys pots, Paola will grab his arm—she's the only one that dares do it in the face of such rage, but she knows that he won't harm her—and he'll go terribly still. She drags him outside and says that if he's going to start destroying things, he might as well be useful and puts an ax in his hands and pushes him toward the woodpile.

By the time his anger has worked itself out, there will be a haphazard stack of chopped wood to use to warm her and her girls. He'll lean the ax against the wall and go to the well to draw a bucket of water to dump over his head. It's only after that that he comes to her.

Paola crosses her arms. "Are you better?" She doesn't ask him whether he's okay and Ezio notes the difference between the questions and appreciates it.

-/-/-/-

He was as skilled as his finest thieves. That was Antonio's impression. Ezio moved just as quickly and silently and was just as good at picking locks. As loyal as a thief too. He didn't have to break them out of their cells, but he did. Giovanni's son for certain.

It's entertaining, to see Ezio and Rosa argue. They snap and grin and smirk and taunt until it seemed like there were no insults left in the world. Then again, leave it to Rosa to invent a few new ones.

There are days when they go to the tavern and Ezio simply sits on his stool and watches the others as they play tarot and throw their dice. Women will sidle up to him and he'll charm them effortlessly and most of the time, he'll go with them to the back rooms. But there are other times when he turns them down and stays watching. On those nights, Rosa will go to sit beside him.

"What's troubling you?" She asks bluntly. Even though she could be tactful, most of the time, she simply chose not to be._ ("What's the point?" She'd say.)_

Ezio shrugs. "Nothing."

"You're lying." Rosa says simply.

Ezio doesn't reply, just takes another sip of his wine.

"Is it lady troubles?" Rosa doubts that that's what it is, but it's the easiest place to start.

Ezio nearly choked on his wine. "Rosa!"

She looked at him oddly. He usually had a smart comeback for things like that. "What?"

Ezio blinks a few times as though he'd never seen her properly before. "You sounded like my mother."  
Rosa has heard tales of Maria Auditore. Of how lovely she was, of how loyal and intelligent. Of how in love she was with Giovanni, of how in love she was with the idea of love. Somehow, Rosa can't quite picture that woman in Rosa's position.

Ezio goes back to his drink but not before she hears him mutter, "It must be a female thing."

-/-/-/-

_Nonna_ Auditore was there at the birth of her first three grandchildren. When Maria passed her the baby swaddled in blankets, she remembers saying the same thing each time. "An Auditore," She would declare proudly, looking into the face of her grandchild. "Without a doubt."

Maria had laughed the first time. "What do you mean_?_" She'd asked. Of course he was an Auditore. What else would he be?

"He has the same look Giovanni did when he was born."

_Nonna_ Auditore passes the child back and Maria cannot see what look the older woman was talking about. She could see the resemblance, naturally. There, the set of the mouth already turning stubborn, the tanned skin, the proud nose. "What look?"

"Like he is ready to challenge the world and win."


End file.
